Nowadays, in order to execute a training on a specific exercise equipment chosen on the basis of a training program or physical exercise to be executed by an user, the user needs to be identified on such exercise equipment.
Such identification procedure can be performed by the user on an electronic calculator of the health or fitness centre, operatively connected to all the exercise equipments, or directly on the exercise equipment chosen by the user.
Once the user identification procedure is completed, a specific training or exercise program for the user can be loaded by the chosen exercise equipment from a server remotely or locally connected to the exercise equipment.
The identification procedure can be manually performed by the user which inserts a user login and a password by means of a touchscreen user interface of the exercise equipment or by means of input interface (i.e. the keyboard and/or the mouse) of the electronic calculator of the fitness centre. Alternatively, the user can provide the exercise equipment or the electronic calculator of the fitness centre with their own user identification data by inserting a supporting data portable device (i.e. an electronic key), storing such user identification data, in a corresponding slot of the exercise equipment or the electronic calculator of the fitness centre via a communication interface (i.e. of the RFID or USB type).
The above described user identification procedure offers several disadvantages.
Firstly, it is required to the user to remember or to annotate on some supports (i.e. onto the agenda, a leaflet, a portable device, and so on) the user login and password. Secondly, such authentication procedure is not intuitive for that group of people, especially elder people, who are not familiar with the new technology devices (i.e. a touchscreen user interface of the exercise equipment or simply an electronic calculator).
By contrast, providing the user with a supporting data portable device storing the user authentication data avoids the need for the user to remember the user login and password. However, according to this solution, the identification procedure can be only performed using the supporting data portable device and, therefore, the user has to bring with themselves to the health or fitness centre such portable device. In addition, the supporting data portable device constitutes a further portable device or object, in addition to mobile phones, PAD (Personal Digital Assistant), notebook, tablet, home or car key, and so on, which the user has to bring with themselves during the day and that it could be easily forgotten on the desk or even lost or stolen. Furthermore, in this solution, the exercise equipment or the electronic calculator of the fitness centre needs to be provided with the slot to receive and to be configured to read the user authentication data from the supporting data portable device.